Engineers, Geoscientists, and other technical professionals learn to receive constructive criticism from professors at university that enables them to develop their technical skills. As professionals, many have also learned to give the same type of constructive technical feedback to the specialists they supervise.

Most technical professionals, however are not provided with training or coaching that will prepare them for giving or receiving the constructive criticism needed to improve the effectiveness of personal behavior or work processes.

Skillful criticism, given with care, and received with the intention of learning can improve our ability to be effective in our professional roles and build productive relationships at the same time.

Objectives

Giving constructive criticism for improvement.

Receiving and learning from criticism.

Asking for constructive feedback.

Giving and receiving positive feedback.

Presenter

Gary Robinson, P.Eng. – President, E. M. Sciences Ltd

Gary Robinson is president of E.M. Sciences Ltd, a management-consulting firm formed in 1975 to meet the needs of project-oriented businesses. Services include organization development and culture change, management training and coaching, collaborative project planning, work redesign, team building, project partnering processes, project management consultation and critique, strategic planning, conflict resolution and continuous productivity and quality improvement. The purpose of his consulting is to increase the productivity of teams, organizations and managers in ways that will also improve the quality of working life for the people in the organization.

Gary has a Master of Science in Engineering and a Master of Science in Organization Development. Partly as a result of his first career as an engineering manager, most of his work is done with projects or with companies whose services and products are delivered as projects. His clients in Canada, the United States, England, India, Korea and Australia have included engineering companies, architectural firms, contractors, manufacturers, federal and provincial governments and crown corporations, city governments, high tech research firms, software design companies, banks, oil companies, universities, hospitals, community agencies, and a variety of voluntary organizations.

He is a Registered Organization Development Professional (RODP) in the International Organization Development Institute, a member of the Project Management Institute, a Professional Engineer with the Association of Professional Engineers of British Columbia and is certified in providing neurofeedback (brain biofeedback).